With the addition of Marion and Love (plus maybe Ray Allen), this team will be very deep. Beyond a starting five that is almost an all-star team, featuring four top-level offensive threats, we have Delly, Thompson, Miller, Marion, maybe Ray Allen, Joe Harris, Brendan Haywood. And who knows if someone else will come over in the Love trade.
How should we manage regular season minutes? You could theoretically use the depth here to really limit regular season minutes to keep people fresh for the playoffs. Hold most of the starters close to 30 MPG, Varejao to 20-25 MPG with plenty of games off, vets off the bench to 15-20 MPG. Consider the Spurs model. Look at minutes played at the link below -- every single player, even young guns like Kawhi Leonard, was under 30 MPG for the regular season. As if that isn't enough, a lot of the key players also played less than 70 games!
http://stats.nba.com/teamPlayers.html?TeamID=1610612759
This is an entirely different model for how to manage a team. Lebron has always been played like he was Superman and IMO in many regular seasons he got overused. Switching to a very different model could really prolong his career.
If we do limit minutes, how should you do it? Play the starting unit together all the time so they get used to playing with each other, or stagger minutes so you always have one of Irving/Love/Lebron on the court? Definitely seems like Dion should play with the second team as well as the starters as he is instant offense and plays so well with Delly. Delly, Dion, Thompson, Marion would be a very solid core second team unit, and if Love played with them could be very dangerous.
How should we manage regular season minutes? You could theoretically use the depth here to really limit regular season minutes to keep people fresh for the playoffs. Hold most of the starters close to 30 MPG, Varejao to 20-25 MPG with plenty of games off, vets off the bench to 15-20 MPG. Consider the Spurs model. Look at minutes played at the link below -- every single player, even young guns like Kawhi Leonard, was under 30 MPG for the regular season. As if that isn't enough, a lot of the key players also played less than 70 games!
http://stats.nba.com/teamPlayers.html?TeamID=1610612759
This is an entirely different model for how to manage a team. Lebron has always been played like he was Superman and IMO in many regular seasons he got overused. Switching to a very different model could really prolong his career.
If we do limit minutes, how should you do it? Play the starting unit together all the time so they get used to playing with each other, or stagger minutes so you always have one of Irving/Love/Lebron on the court? Definitely seems like Dion should play with the second team as well as the starters as he is instant offense and plays so well with Delly. Delly, Dion, Thompson, Marion would be a very solid core second team unit, and if Love played with them could be very dangerous.